Tag: effects

DOD FX55B SupraDistortion – BigBuff Mod

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wpid-20140915_140854.jpg

Here’s another in a line now of DOD pedal mods. For this FX55B, I decided to go for more of a BigMuff sound. Playing around with this pedal initially, I found it to be like most mass-produced distortion/fuzz effects. It had a very thin sound and that notorious volume drop that you may have heard on a high-school band’s first album. The lows were almost non-existent when the effect was engaged. I found the following schematic and, with a few simple changes, came out with a distortion pedal with considerable gain, massive lows, and a smoother, more rounded square wave.

dodfx55b_bigbuff_mod

Overall, the idea here was to get more from the pedal by employing some germanium to smooth out the harshness and to increase the overall output. The output is now considerably higher as long as the tone knob is set closer to 10 o’clock. At noon, the mixing is practically useless. At the 4 o’clock position, you get more of a thin, trash punk type of sound with an excessive noise floor. The sound sample demonstrates the effect with the tone set at about 10:30-11 and first contrasts the distortion setting. The third set shows off the tone below 10 o’clock. The last set shows what the tone does when you sweep through it.

Mistumin Valve Caster build…

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a tube overdrive build for Anthony of the The New Diet and The Regular Fucked Up People. it’s my take on the Mitsumin valve caster with the values i tend to use and a Telefunken 12AX7. excuse the ugliness for this one is just the prototype.

four sections of clean vs. effected total.
[audio:http://abrammorphew.com/notes/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tube_overdrive_sample_long_02.mp3|titles=Tube Overdrive sound sample]
1) high volume, no tone roll-off, and low gain
2) mid volume, high tone roll-off, and mid gain
3) mid volume, mid tone, mid gain
4) high volume, low tone, high gain

tube_od_proto_02

tube_od_proto_03

tube_od_proto_04

Bending notes with PT2399…

abram

i’ve been experimenting with this PT2399 chip and using various schematics to create a digital delay circuit. the delay time seems to be directly attached to the sample rate since lengthening the delay time gives a nice decrease in pitch. i’m toying with the idea of dropping a time constant in around the controlling delay time circuit to see about achieving a “tape warble” sort of effect. we’ll see what works.

here’s the schematic i’ve been working with though the values i’m using are hardly similar.

[audio:http://abrammorphew.com/notes/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/pt2399-demo01.mp3|titles=pt2399-demo01]

Boss Tremolo TR-2 w/ C4 Mod +Gain Boost

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This little guy is currently on eBay. I always thought that this tremolo wasn’t bad, but the volume drop was insatiable and drove me nuts sometimes. I thought I would try modding this one by cutting out the C4 cap (a 0.1uF bypass cap) which is the alleged cause of the gain loss. It is, but not without good reason. It does keep the effect sounding smooth and really clean. Removing the cap also opens up those capped frequencies which some people report a more warm and/or harsh tremolo tone. I enjoyed the more dramatic effect of the pedal myself, and decided to make it even more so by substituting the 10k ohm resistor before the non-inverting terminal of the first opamp for a 4.7k. This added a nice volume boost which gives the tremolo more cut especially when combined with heavy reverb or a washy delay. We’ll see if anyone decides to buy it. I think it’s a huge upgrade from the original sound.